We are just a few weeks away from Battlefield V’s release on November 20th, and the game’s Day One update is huge.

DICE’s Multiplayer Producer David Sirland had already hinted towards a giant day one update, with patch notes written across 139 pages. The patch notes provide a very detailed description of each weapon, updates and balance changes made, tweaks vehicle characteristics and specializations, what the studio changed from the open beta, the development process so far and so much more. Here are the update’s highlights.

Updates Made to Weapons

There are two major pillars when it comes to Battlefield V weapon design. We wanted a clear distinction between weapons. We’ve also worked towards a grounded, physical gunplay system, which can be mastered and learned. To achieve this, we’ve done tweaks in several areas, including the below.

Changes to weapon balance (Example: Short-range damage of some assault rifles have been decreased.)

Changes to weapon Specializations (Example: You now have more choice in the Specialization trees.)

Rolling Out Vehicle Tweaks

In Battlefield V, we wanted to do the iconic vehicles of World War 2 justice, infusing them with the character and feel of their real-life counterparts, while adapting the gameplay mechanics to work well with the rest of the game. Here are some of the many tweaks made to fulfill this.

Changes to vehicle characteristics (Example: Aspects like speed, handling, ammo, durability, and maneuverability have all been tweaked.)

Improving Maps and Modes

The battlefields you’ll be fighting on, and the modes you’ll be playing, are of course huge areas of your Battlefield V experience. Many changes have been made, but let’s look at a handful of examples.

Changes to Attrition (Example: Supply Stations are now always separated, not combined as before, and are normally near objectives in each mode.)

Changes to visibility (Example: We added dynamic character rim-lighting to make soldiers stand out more in some instances.)

Changes to Grand Operations (Example: We added a voice over to narrate all outcomes of the operations’ in-game days.)

Changes to Frontlines (Example: There’s now a timer to prevent defenders from camping at spawned bomb areas.)

Changes to Conquest (Example: We added a voice over message informing about the state of the game halfway through it.)

Balancing the War of Attrition

Rewarding experiences often come from a place of risk. To create a game where peril is inherently looming around the corner, powerful weaponry that does some serious damage is needed. To balance that, we need to find a sweet spot to make weapons feel dangerous but not all-powerful. This is where Attrition comes in, limiting health and ammunition, which affects both soldiers and vehicles. Attrition will mean more rewarding gunplay, resource strategy, balance between vehicle and infantry units, and fixes to long-standing issues like grenade spam. Since Open Beta, we’ve tweaked several Attrition-related aspects.

The impact of ammunition and health attrition has been somewhat toned down, by giving players a Health Pouch when spawning.

We increased the maximum magazine amount for some weapons for the same reason.

We took a look at all the Supply Stations to make sure it was clear if (and where) they can be built.

Step into a Dynamic World

The world you’ll encounter on the maps of Battlefield V is the most dynamic we’ve ever created. Fortifications, Bullet Penetration, dynamic weather, destruction, fire effects, collapsing debris, terrain craters – the list is long. It all results in a better, more interesting sandbox that will stand the test of live service expansion and evolution without even breaking a sweat. These dynamic aspects have seen several changes leading up to launch.

We did a full pass on Bullet Penetration to make sure bullets react as they should to the various materials in the game, we added destruction on static vehicles, meaning you’ll see trucks and civilian cars explode or be crushed.

Sizes of craters in the terrain have been adjusted with soldier stance in mind.

Damage and the sound/visual effects of fire have been tweaked, we’ve added hatches to doors, changed the weather system so storms will last just long enough, and much, much more.

Battlefield V releases on November 20, 2018, for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One platforms.